Scandal // h.s au

fourteen: "It's nothing."

He was driving her home, after he made sure Louis was alright. The police came in for a statement, and Louis was still not all there because of the drugs in his system, so Harry spoke for him, answering as many questions as he could, offering mostly ambiguous responses since he had no proof that it was anything other than a random street shooting with them being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He knew though, that the timing and the settings were aimed at Harry, Louis, Aimee, and anyone involved in this case. He couldn't help but think that if it passed safely this time, would they always get this lucky? And was it really worth it?

Louis got shot. Sure, it was in the leg, but it could have been worse. It could have killed him. It could have been her. And Harry suddenly couldn't bear the thought. A sigh went past his lips, as he silently drove down the quiet streets.

" What's on your mind?" She carefully questioned, earning a weak smile from him, as he spared her a side glance.

" That's a widely-ranged question, Miss Montgomery. I don't think we have the time or energy to think all the possible answers to it through." The cigarette was back between his lips, as he calmly answered.

" Alright. What do we do now? We still have Louis' folder, and we need to -"

" Miss Montgomery?"

" Yeah?"

" Why is your name Aimee, and not simply Amy?" Her eyebrows furrowed at the randomness and irrelevancy of the question.

" My mother was French, and she deeply appreciated her culture, and my dad was too hipster to fight against anything unexpected or new, so that's how it happened."

" You used past tense."

" I did."

" Are they gone?"

" Mother returned to France. Was too constrained here, too out of place, and she couldn't take it for long. Father went crazy, couldn't live without knowing where she was and how she was spending her time. So, as soon as I started college, he went after her. Haven't heard from either of them since." A prominent frown took over his features, as he bit down harder upon his cigarette.

" And you're fine with that?"

" I guess."

" Miss Montgomery, I told you -"

" Journalists don't guess, I know. But humans do, and maybe a journalist isn't all I want to be." In the process of taking in her words and analyzing them, his feet had eased off the pedals, causing the car to slightly slow down, before he tilted his head to the side, fully meeting Aimee's curious eyes.

" What else do you want to be, Miss Montgomery?"

" I don't know yet, all I know is that being one-dimensional is boring, and quite frankly, terrifying, because you might easily lose that, and then what are you left with?"

" What you're always left with, Miss Montgomery; ashes of what used to be, remains of what you once were, bitterness and maybe grief. Or the lack of all of that. You're left with nothing at all. I haven't decided which is worse yet."

" I refuse to believe that. If you're left with remains of a single aspect, then there's nothing left of you, you're none existent. That's no way to live."

" Maybe we're not meant to then."

" We were created for that purpose alone, Mr. Styles. Humans were created to adapt to whichever circumstances they find themselves in; to build a fire, or make a house, or plant seeds and eat what comes of it. We were created to make something out of nothing, even if that nothing is our very beings. We cease to survive when we're dead, and we're not."

" But that's no life, Miss Montgomery. Survival and living are two completely separate things, that can almost never occur in parallelism."

" How so? Survival is part of the process of living."

" Not really, no. Survival is the means to an end. It's the last stubborn breath you take, it's the medications we give to dying patients, knowing that they'll die either ways, it's the foolish promise to wake up the next morning without really knowing that for sure, it's how soldiers kill soldiers even after they're wounded and bleeding to death. Survival isn't living, Miss Montgomery, it's death."

" But if you don't survive, then you'll die sooner, and that's not living either."

" Maybe we were never meant to live then. Maybe we were meant to be born, survive until we can't anymore, then die."

" Mr. Styles, it's -"

" Honestly, Miss Montgomery, when was the last time you felt alive, in the most raw sense of the word?" The stubborn frown on her features only deepened, because she didn't need to think. It was right there, screaming at her to announce it to the whole world, but she couldn't. There was too much at stake, and he was still too frightened, too wounded, to feel anything at all.

" It's," The words almost forced their way through her, but she swallowed them away, " It's nothing. Forget it."

She sat back, turning her face away from him, head rested against the window, arms protectively crossed against her chest. He watched her warily, contemplating letting her be, before eventually doing so, sighing once. The rest of the drive was painfully silent, before he stopped in front of her house, and she got out of the car without a mere goodbye. He stood there, watching her walk into her house, closing the door behind her, and all he wanted to do was scream that he was wrong, that he had been dead for so long, but then on that street, when she was buried into his arms, seeking safety, when she looked at him and asked if he was alright although she had just been shot at, when she innocently slept against his arm and managed to maintain her grip on his hand, it was then, that he had felt alive, for the first time in the longest time.

And she didn't know. And maybe she never would; that there was survival, and there was death, and she was the sweet taste of life in between.

_______________________________________________________

a/n: now we know a bit of aimee's background story, what did you think? please let me know :)

ily x